Facebook, privacy and trust

As a relatively recent, and not too committed, Facebook user, it's been interesting to watch the explosion of angst (most of it on Facebook) about the changes to their privacy policy. I am probably more relaxed about it than many – I simply went into the settings and locked it down as much as I could. But for many people it's a really big deal.

The issue, of course, in one of perceived trust. To put it bluntly, it feels to many that Facebook is pulling a fast one. In reality, they are trying to get Facebook hooked into as many other sites and apps as possible in a move to ever greater ubiquity. This means they have to share a whole bunch of data. For those who live on Facebook, this feels like a form of digital imprisonment that's eroding their control and giving away (or selling) what they perceive to be theirs and theirs alone.

The key lesson here is:  

never take your customers for granted

(however much you think they love you)

It will be fascinating to see whether this episode makes the top of the bell curve for Facebook. Whether they will begin the slow (or not so slow) decent in users as have so many others before them. All the more amazing when you consider that just a few weeks back there were articles proclaiming that Facebook is the internet. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've put together a Wordle for Facebook's 5830 word privacy policy. The words that jump out at me are "may use information" – that figures.

Created with Wordle – http://www.wordle.net/